


The Kings of the North

by Evandar



Series: The Kings of the North [1]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Partial Fix-It, Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-02 00:17:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2792870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evandar/pseuds/Evandar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Battle of Five Armies, the old alliances of the north must be rebuilt. It will not be easy - for one, Bard has no idea what he's doing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Kings of the North

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Hobbit Reverse Bang on Tumblr, inspired by the art of Lynndyre

He feels like an intruder when he lifts the flap of the tent. He feels even worse when those already gathered turn to look at him. The Master’s sneer is hardly surprising, and the familiarity of it is almost comforting now that he is faced with a gathering of royalty – plus one Hobbit and a Wizard.

He hadn’t thought to come to this meeting until an Elf arrived at his own tent with a written – and, when that proved fruitless – verbal invitation from King Thranduil. He looks for the Elvenking as he lets the tent flap fall behind him, hoping for a friendlier face, and he finds him. Far from friendly, Thranduil-King is as blank and expressionless as a statue, and Bard feels his stomach twist.

He has faced down a dragon, he reminds himself, as if that would make this any easier. Smaug was a huge, destructive monster; ruthless and brutal. He _had_ to be stopped and Bard – descendant of Girion and owner of the last black arrow – was the one in the best position to do it. That doesn’t mean he’s made to be a leader. It doesn’t make him a hero, either, no matter what the people are saying. He is only a Man. A common Man with holes in his boots and a coat that has seen better days; with three hungry mouths to feed and his livelihood as dead as the damned dragon. He’s as out of place amongst these kings and lords as an Elf in Mordor. He wears no velvet finery or armour, and his hair is wild and loose – unadorned by golden crown or silver circlet – and he has a sinking suspicion that he smells, as always, slightly of fish.

There is only spare seat at the table that dominates the inside of the tent. It is one left open between the Elves and the Dwarves; a visual reminder of the gulf between their parties. The Hobbit and the Wizard have placed themselves diplomatically between King Fili’s entourage and the Master’s grasping. It leaves Bard with no choice but to place himself opposite the Master, and he can’t help but wonder if that decision was deliberate on _someone’s_ part. A swift glance to his right, to the Elvenking, reveals not a single hint. To the left, King Fili and Prince Kili are stone-faced and utterly unlike the boys he met on the riverbank. He’d known, coming in, that this meeting would be tense; he hadn’t quite understood what an understatement that had been. Even with the dragon dead and Thorin Oakenshield with it, the smallest slight could no doubt ignite a war.

But the people outside are wounded and starving, and someone has to speak for them. Someone who is one of them.

He takes a deep breath and sits. The Master looks nothing short of livid, though he tries to hide it behind a curtain of his lank hair. Next to him, Alfrid shifts in his seat. The both of them are already scheming, no doubt.

From the corner of his eye, he thinks he sees the corner of Thranduil’s mouth shift ever-so-slightly upwards into a faint smile. An illusion, perhaps, or a fantasy; when he blinks, the Elvenking is as blank as he was before, and Bard has neither seen nor heard of him smiling before, so he tucks the thought away and focusses on the Wizard instead. It is he, after all, who is speaking.

“I fear there must be peace between you, difficult though it may be to grasp, for the world is changing. There is darkness growing ever stronger. You saw for yourselves the armies of Orcs that poured forth.” The Wizard glances to Thranduil, here, and Bard follows his gaze only to be left wondering what he is looking at, for there is still no expression to be found. “The north must be united,” the Wizard continues, “though the ways and means remain yours to decide.”

Silence falls over them, heavy as a blanket, and Bard wonders if it’s a talent of Wizards to make a bad situation seem worse. Allies they must be. United. But how, when none of them care to speak first? When so much blood has been shed and doubts cast? He has ended arguments before, but only with his fists as a youth; now, as a father, he solves them amongst his children – encourages them more kindly than the Wizard has done to this council – but he is a single Man in a tent of proud, capricious beings. He can’t withhold supper from them any more than he can stop the sun from making its course across the sky.

In the end, the pause is shorter than it feels before King Fili speaks. 

“I feel I must begin by offering apology for the actions of my uncle and the company while under his command,” he says. “Much of what happened is on our heads, and while I will not - _cannot_ \- regret the return of our kingdom, I do regret that it came at the cost of your homes.”

He is so very young, Bard realises. Only a boy, really, clinging to his brother’s hand beneath the table even as he addresses kings in a voice as steady as the mountain itself. He feels a stab of sympathy for the Dwarf King – remembers the fear and desperation in his eyes as he came to Bard for help with his ailing brother. Still a child. A remarkably brave _child_.

“But words cannot rebuild those homes, which is why – with the blessing of my council – I will fulfil those promises broken by my uncle and fund the rebuilding of both Dale and Lake Town, in hopes that peace and prosperity may exist between us once more.”

It is generous. Very, very generous – though no more than is deserved. Bard swallows and glances to the Master. He hates the gleam in his eyes that he sees there. Hates it more than anything – he knows in his heart that whatever money is taken to rebuild Lake Town, the most of it will line the Master’s coffers. 

“What of now?” he asks, seeing the Master’s mouth open to speak. His heart pounds against his ribs as those gathered turn to look at him. “Your offer is generous and greatly appreciated, but winter is coming and our people are homeless. And while King Thranduil has honoured us with his aid, he has his own people to worry about – and if I’m not much mistaken, there’s no food in the mountain either.”

“He’s right about that,” a Dwarf mutters, just loud enough for the whole room to hear while soft enough to be able to feign surprise that they have. He’s a fierce-looking one, with dark hair streaked with grey and an impressive beard that covers his chest, and sitting as he is on King Fili’s left, Bard can only assume that he’s both wise and highly respected. 

King Fili glances to him and sighs. “You are correct,” he says. “What food we have is what rations our allies from the Iron Hills brought with them, and it is far from enough to support us through the winter.”

There is only one place where sustenance can come from at this point in the year, and sure enough, King Thranduil shifts forward in his chair. “I may have resources enough for all our peoples, if my kin in the south agree to lend aid,” he says. 

The only Elves Bard knows of to the south are those of the Golden Wood, led by the Elf Witch. That Thranduil may be related to them – to her, perhaps, as she is their lady – doesn’t come as a surprise, somehow. Perhaps it is the age in Thranduil’s gaze; the fathomless weight of it as it bears down upon them. It’s a strange thing to be in the same room as one who can, perhaps, see down to the very heart of you.

“We would thank you for that aid,” King Fili says, sounding more cautious than before. His advisors look grim, uncomfortable, and one that Bard recognises as a member of the company is almost as white as his beard.

“I would expect nothing less,” Thranduil murmurs.

…

The air outside of the tent is crisp and cool. The sun is setting and there is ice in the air. It will snow again tonight, and Bard spares a thought for those of his people who are making their shelter in the eaves of Mirkwood. He, his family, and those Men who survived the battle, have been making their camp in the ruins of Dale. The cellars of the old houses are sheltered and still sturdy, even after sixty years, though the walls above ground a crumbling. King Fili’s coffers will be a good deal emptier before the city is truly made habitable. It is dire, and dismal, but better now that the corpses from the battle have been moved to the pyres and burned, though the smell of charred flesh and bone still lingers in the air.

He doesn’t believe that the north is broken. Not yet. He has lived through enough hardship to know the strength of his people, and he fears anyone who would believe the Elves were not a threat. The Dwarves, he is unsure of, and he clenches his fist in his coat pocket to erase the memory of silver and emeralds sliding through his fingers.

The necklace of his ancestor is safe with the Elvenking, no doubt by now adorning his slender throat and gleaming against his pale skin. The Master’s face been simply glorious to behold in that moment when Bard had turned to the Elvenking to present it, though no more glorious than the stunned expression that had flitted over Thranduil’s face for as second before he had slipped back into impassivity. For some reason, the glimpse of it had made Thranduil seem so much more real; more present and more beautiful, though it is hard now to think of how that had been possible.

He doesn’t understand Thranduil. He doesn’t understand much of what happened in that tent. His fingers itch for his bow, not riches, and he longs for the sight of his children. He longs, truly, for the days passed; hard though they were, he knew who and what he was before the Dwarves came. Now people he has known his entire life bow to him as he winds his way through the streets of Dale to where his tent is set up in the remains of a public square.

He will hunt, he decides. What, he has no idea, because few game stray onto the desolation, but it will get him out of the town and away from people for the rest of the day. The only people he _wants_ to see are his children, but they have their own chores and tasks to do, and he knows that they will be happier left to them and away from his strange mood. He doesn’t want to worry them, and he raised them to be too observant for them not to notice it, so when he reaches the tent he lingers long enough only to take up his bow and his quiver before setting off once more in search of solitude.


End file.
